Filmy z nouze. Způsoby rámcování filmových projekcí a divácké zkušenosti v období stalinismu
| Title in English | Films out of Necessity. The Means of Framing Film Screenings And Spectatorial Experience in the Stalinist Era |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Iluminace. Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Mass media, audiovision |
| Keywords | history of film reception; history of film exhibition; cinema in the era of Stalinism |
| Description | The text focuses on two specific distribution practices exercised by the Czechoslovak State Film (CSF) from 1951 to 1953. The first of them was a rerelease of older Czech films accompanied for the occasion by an introductory commentary text. The second of them was the so called extended programs formed by a screening of a feature film together with a medium length documentary. The practices may help us understand the way distribution mechanisms were used in the Stalinist era and the way the communist regime employed them in order to redefine the experience of cinema going. After February 1948, the Czechoslovak cultural politics attempted to purify film distribution from all ideologically inconvenient films, i. e. mostly from Czech films made during the First republic and the German protectorate and from films made in the West. However, this led to a sharp decrease in the number of new films in cinemas (the production of the socalled people s democratic countries and of the Soviet Union was not capable of covering the demand of film distribution) and to a decrease in film attendance. Slight liberalization of cultural politics from 1951 to 1952 allowed ČSF to solve the problem by releasing several films from the West as well as older Czech films. Introductory texts and medium-length documentary films were added to feature films in order to guarantee an adequate frame of spectatorial experience. The means we have analyzed in this text employed texts and documentaries in order to assure: at least according to their proclaimed function: that the entertaining function of the screened feature film would be re-framed into the educational function. For example, the film SVĚT PATŘÍ NÁM (1937), starring the popular actors Jan Werich, Jiří Voskovec and Adina Mandlová, was presented by the introductory text as a testimony, the evidence of Czech filmmakers s antifascist resistance. Other texts stressed the high value of the literary texts written by so called progressive authors upon which certain films were based while criticizing the film version. Sixteen films attractive to audiences, e. g. FANFAN LA TULIPE and LA BEAUTÉ DU DIABLE were accompanied by medium length documentaries: mostly praising one of the Soviet republics. The research into the reception of films thus presented is based predominantly upon the testimonies of emigrants for Radio Free Europe and reveals that spectators were clearly aware of the effort to reframe screened films. However, the imposed interpretative frame was explicitly rejected by the spectators and attempts to avoid Soviet documentaries by some of them resulted e. g. in the practice of screening these mediumlength films sometimes before and at other times after the feature film in order to make the avoidance difficult. Czechoslovak State Film tested certain distribution practices allowing it to release more attractive films and in this way accomplish planned revenues and attendance. Strongly centralized distribution and experiences with the reaction of audiences to strictly limited distribution profile allowed it to anticipate with high precision which films will be attended by extraordinarily large numbers of spectators. The practice of extended programs introduced another unstable element experienced both by cinema managers who were unsure of what the reaction of audience would be and by spectators often unaware of the sequence of films. Under the conditions given, the suture between a framing complement and a feature film established a line that co defined the social space created for screenings. The space triggered certain expectations on the part of the audience: in the Stalinist era it was purposefully built as a tightly disciplined space, yet still it was disturbed by the moments of unexpectedness and uncertainty. |
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